Fate extends White House invitation

Cathy Salter

Monday

Apr 26, 2010 at 12:01 AMApr 26, 2010 at 1:00 PM

Since March 2009, when first lady Michelle Obama and sixth-graders from a Washington, D.C., elementary school planted a kitchen garden on the South Lawn of the White House, I’ve been trying to talk my way onto the White House grounds. A trip to Washington, D.C., was on our April calendar. Unfortunately, no invitation arrived from the first lady for a chat about edible schoolyard gardens and a tour of her visionary kitchen garden.

Instead, Kit and I visited the People’s Garden at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where young workers with disabilities were tending beds of vegetables, herbs, rhubarb and crimson clover buzzing with bees.

I left the site with landscape plans for how this simple but splendid garden could be replicated in communities and schools across the country. Washington truly is the people’s city. You feel it walking from one magnificent museum or historical monument to another on the Mall — all free to visitors from around the United States and world.

For lunch, we met colleagues from our years at the National Geographic Society. Before leaving, we stopped in at the NGS gift shop, squeezed into a carnival-style photo booth and, as a trip memento, captured our images within the magazine’s signature golden rectangle with the White House as the simulated cover’s background. “My hoped-for invitation to visit the White House kitchen garden isn’t going to happen this trip,” I conceded as the picture was printed. “The first lady is in Mexico.”

The next day, Kit had conference sessions to attend, so I set off to explore on my own. My first stop was the Corcoran Art Gallery to see a much-anticipated “Turner to Cezanne” collection never before on tour in the United States. Disappointed upon learning the exhibition had closed early, I headed for E Street, which passes along the sprawling South Lawn of the White House.

Perhaps, I told myself, I could glimpse the kitchen garden and apiary through the elegant wrought-iron fencing before heading off on another adventure. Stopping to ask a U.S. national park ranger the best route to the viewing fence, he put a blue ticket in my hand and suggested I follow the line of people queuing up ahead. Twice a year, he explained with pride, the president and first lady invite the public to the White House for a free seasonal tour of its historic gardens. This was my lucky day.

In no time, the orderly line that I joined without a nanosecond of hesitation advanced to and through the South Gate security checkpoint. Once inside, another friendly park ranger handed me an historic booklet — “The White House Gardens and Grounds Spring 2010.”

On the inside page, Michelle Obama invited me to experience the beginning of spring on the South Lawn of the White House. “For over two centuries, first families, White House gardeners and others have cultivated these grounds to ensure their legacy for future generations.” I imagined our conversation as she pointed out the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, Rose Garden, the more than 8,000 tulips, ornamental cherry trees, dogwoods planted by President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton and the magnolia trees planted by President Andrew Jackson in honor of his beloved wife, Rachel.

For an hour, I strolled at my leisure past graceful trees planted by past presidents and first ladies, photographing the grounds, wings of the White House, the apiary, and every legume and plant label in the kitchen garden. Before finally leaving, I phoned Kit and then my 91-year-old mother, Alice, in San Antonio.

“You’re not going to believe where I’m standing,” I beamed in a flood of uncontainable joy.

Taking a final backward glance at the majestic grounds that I’d happened onto, I exited through the Southwest Gate emblazoned with the presidential seal. Then, carried along on winds of sweet serendipity, I moseyed back to our hotel without my feet once touching the ground.

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